Rest vs. rustAfter Saturday night's game against Springfield, the Charge do not return to the court for seven days. They travel Dec. 7 to Erie, the site of their season-ope...

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Rest vs. rust

After Saturday night's game against Springfield, the Charge do not return to the court for seven days. They travel Dec. 7 to Erie, the site of their season-opening win last week, to face the BayHawks again.

Charge head coach Steve Hetzel doesn't mind the downtime.

"You get a long time to prepare for the next opponent," Hetzel said. "We get to go over a couple of their sets each day so the guys aren't getting hit with everything at the same point. … And guys get time to rest."

Hetzel seems to like the slower D-League schedule, where teams play 50 regular season games, better than the NBA schedule, where the regular season consists of 82.

Hetzel spent the previous eight seasons doing video and player development work in the NBA with the Spurs, Cavaliers and Pistons. The toll of the NBA schedule on players is not a myth, Hetzel says.

"People say they get paid good money to do it, but to go through it is a complete grind with the travel and playing four games in five nights and back-to-backs," he said. "Here you deal with different circumstances with travel and the bus rides. But the time in between is ample time for recovery, which is nice."

Rock and basketball

Saturday was Battle of the Bands night presented by The Repository at the Charge game. The promotion, which featured live performances before the game and at halftime, kicked off the application process for the 2014 Battle of the Bands. The 2014 event is March 1 at the Palace Theatre.

Suffice to say the Springfield Armor have had enough of Canton and Jorge Gutierrez.

The Charge point guard recorded the second triple-double in team history as Canton completed a weekend sweep of the Armor with a 107-96 win Saturday night at Memorial Civic Center.

A crowd of 2,469 watched Gutierrez lead the Charge to a 4-0 start to the season with another balanced effort. The second-year pro scored a career-high 25 points on 10-of-17 shooting, mostly on aggressive drives to the bucket. He added 12 rebounds and 11 assists.

"I was just taking the best shots possible," said Gutierrez, who totaled 15 points, six assists and five rebounds in Friday 91-88 win against Springfield. "I want to get where I feel most comfortable shooting the ball. They fell in today."

Charge head coach Steve Hetzel said Gutierrez "controlled the game," despite playing with sore feet. As what looked to be an easy Charge win turned tight in the second half, Hetzel said, "I leaned on him heavily."

Not that Hetzel wanted to.

"I told (Gutierrez) walking into the locker (at halftime) if we can put this way, I'll get him a rest," Hetzel said with a smile. "At the end of the game, when he was looking to come out, I told him it was his own fault for making it closer than it should've been."

Charge center Arinze Onuaku is meshing just fine with his teammates — new and old.

In his second game since being reacquired Wednesday, the powerful Onuaku came off the bench to provide 22 points and eight rebounds in 19 minutes. He shot 7 of 10 from the floor and 8 of 12 from the foul line.

Not bad for a guy that says he knows "like, three plays."

Kevin Jones scored 17 points and Tyrell Biggs provided 14 points and nine rebounds. Antoine Agudio added 13 points and five assists for a Charge team that's had a different player lead in scoring in each win.

"There are a lot of weapons out there," Onuaku said. "You can tell all of the guys like each other. The chemistry is growing."

A game that was free and easy for the Charge changed after halftime.

The Armor picked up the intensity in the third quarter. A 60-44 Charge lead at halftime was down to just 76-70 going to the fourth quarter.

Springfield guard Justin Johnson scored 20 of his team-high 24 points in the second half.

"He really applied the pressure to us," Hetzel said. "He got in our paint more times than I like."

The 0-3 Armor got their deficit down to four twice in the fourth quarter but never could get it to a single possession.

The Charge used an 18-6 run over five minutes of the second quarter to lead by as many as 17 in the first half. Biggs scored 10 points during the stretch. Springfield shot 39.2 percent and totaled four assists to Canton's 57.4 percent and 15 assists in the first half.

Page 2 of 2 - About the 15 assists in the half, Onuaku said, "In a D-League system, you don't usually see that. If we can do that on a night-in, night-out basis, that's going to lead to a lot of wins."